Adam Sherman http://www.sherman.ca Mostly random thoughts on software, gear and the great outdoors. Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:08:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Out in a puddle with the Land Cruiser Club http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/12/17/puddle-land-cruiser/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/12/17/puddle-land-cruiser/#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:01:30 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=323 ]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/12/17/puddle-land-cruiser/feed/ 0 Posting on the Versature Blog http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/04/04/posting-on-the-versature-blog/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/04/04/posting-on-the-versature-blog/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:18:33 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=318 I have been posting on Versature’s blog, conVERSAtion, as most of that content is better suited to it. A few recent posts of mine:

So take a look over there for more interesting posts.

 

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/04/04/posting-on-the-versature-blog/feed/ 0 Automated Releases with Maven and Google App Engine http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/02/15/releases-with-maven-and-gae/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/02/15/releases-with-maven-and-gae/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:09:36 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=306 Google App Engine LogoVersature has been building our applications using Java and deploying them on Google App Engine for some time. It has been a very effective solution for us.

Recently, I wanted to improve our release process by making it more formal and automated. After the usual battle with Maven, I managed to win. :)

Our current build automates the following:

  • Remove the trailing -SNAPSHOT from the version number in the POM
  • Tag the release in Subversion
  • Filter the appengine-web.xml to contain the version number
  • Build and deploy to GAE
  • Increment version number in the POM and add the trailing -SNAPSHOT

All of the above is achieved with two Maven commands: release:prepare and release:perform.

Here is the POM with most of the irrelevant parts removed:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <version>0-9-0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
 
    <name>Versature Dashboard</name>
 
    <scm>
        <connection>scm:svn:https://REMOVED/trunk</connection>
    </scm>
 
    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>google-maven-repo</id>
            <name>Maven Google App Engine Repository</name>
            <url>http://maven-gae-plugin.googlecode.com/svn/repository/</url>
        </repository>
        <repository>
            <id>codehaus</id>
            <name>codehaus</name>
            <url>http://repository.codehaus.org/org/codehaus/groovy/</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>
 
    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>maven-gae-plugin-repo</id>
            <name>Maven Google App Engine Repository</name>
            <url>http://maven-gae-plugin.googlecode.com/svn/repository/</url>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>
 
    <dependencies>
        REMOVED
    </dependencies>
 
    <build>
        <testOutputDirectory>target/test-classes</testOutputDirectory>
        <outputDirectory>${webappDirectory}/WEB-INF/classes</outputDirectory>
        <testSourceDirectory>src/test/java</testSourceDirectory>
 
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.1.1</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>compile</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>exploded</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
                <configuration>
                    <webResources>
                      <resource>
                        <directory>src/main/webapp</directory>
                        <filtering>true</filtering>
                        <includes>
                          <include>**/appengine-web.xml</include>
                        </includes>
                      </resource>
                    </webResources>
                    <webappDirectory>${webappDirectory}</webappDirectory>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
 
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>gwt-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${gwt-plugin.version}</version>
                <configuration>
                    <logLevel>INFO</logLevel>
                    <port>${gae.port}</port>
                    <server>com.google.appengine.tools.development.gwt.AppEngineLauncher</server>
                    <runTarget>/REMOVED</runTarget>
                    <style>OBF</style>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <configuration>
                            <extraJvmArgs>-Xmx1024m -Xms512m</extraJvmArgs>
                            <module>com.versature.dashboard.Dashboard</module>
                        </configuration>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>compile</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
 
            <plugin>
                <groupId>net.kindleit</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-gae-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>0.9.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <unpackVersion>${gae.version}</unpackVersion>
                    <serverId>appengine.google.com</serverId>
                </configuration>
                <dependencies>
                    <dependency>
                        <groupId>net.kindleit</groupId>
                        <artifactId>gae-runtime</artifactId>
                        <version>${gae.version}</version>
                        <type>pom</type>
                    </dependency>
                </dependencies>
            </plugin>
 
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.2.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <scmCommentPrefix>[RELEASE] </scmCommentPrefix>
                    <goals>gae:deploy</goals>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
 
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.gmaven</groupId>
                <artifactId>gmaven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${gmaven.version}</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>sources</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>generateStubs</goal>
                            <goal>compile</goal>
                            <goal>generateTestStubs</goal>
                            <goal>testCompile</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                    <execution>
                        <id>properties</id>
                        <phase>validate</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>execute</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <source>
                                project.properties["gae-application.version"] = project.version.toLowerCase()
                            </source>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
 
    <!-- Specify hard-coded project properties here -->
    <properties>
        <gmaven.version>1.3</gmaven.version>
        <gae.version>1.6.2.1</gae.version>
        <gae.port>9090</gae.port>
 
        <webappDirectory>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}</webappDirectory>
    </properties>
 
    <profiles>
        <profile>
            <id>release-build</id>
            <activation>
                <property>
                    <name>performRelease</name>
                    <value>true</value>
                </property>
            </activation>
 
            <properties>
                <gwt.style>OBF</gwt.style>
            </properties>
        </profile>
    </profiles>
    <groupId>com.versature.dashboard</groupId>
    <artifactId>dashboard</artifactId>
</project>

If you run into an error similar to this one:

com.google.appengine.tools.admin.AdminException: Unable to update app: Error posting to URL: https://appengine.google.com/api/appversion/create?app_id=versature-dashboardhr&version=0-8-1-SNAPSHOT&
400 Bad Request
Error when loading application configuration:
Unable to assign value '0-8-1-SNAPSHOT' to attribute 'version':
Value '0-8-1-SNAPSHOT' for version does not match expression '^(?!-)[a-z\d-]{1,100}$'

It is because GAE only accepts lowercase letters, digits and hyphens in version names. (Because those version names become URLs.) I solved this by using a snippet of Groovy (Using the GMaven plugin.) code to automatically create a property with all lowercase letters before filtering it into the appengine-web.xml. So version 0-8-0-SNAPSHOT becomes 0-8-0-snapshot:

1

project.properties["gae-application.version"] = project.version.toLowerCase()

And that’s it, it Just Works™. Gotta love Maven!

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2012/02/15/releases-with-maven-and-gae/feed/ 2 Developer Position Open at Versature http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/12/05/developer-position-open-at-versature/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/12/05/developer-position-open-at-versature/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:11:03 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=301 We’re hiring again at Versature, take a look:

Developer Position Open

It’s a software developer position that gets you working directly with me. Make sure to spread the word!

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/12/05/developer-position-open-at-versature/feed/ 0 Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies | The Onion http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/10/07/last-american-who-knew-what-the-fuck-he-was-doing-dies-the-onion-americas-finest-news-source/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/10/07/last-american-who-knew-what-the-fuck-he-was-doing-dies-the-onion-americas-finest-news-source/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:15:17 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=299 This is beautiful–The Onion has managed to embed such a compliment to Steve Jobs in a satirical piece:

Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies

Well done.

 

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/10/07/last-american-who-knew-what-the-fuck-he-was-doing-dies-the-onion-americas-finest-news-source/feed/ 0 xkcd: Password Strength http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/10/xkcd-password-strength/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/10/xkcd-password-strength/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:43:55 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=292 As always, xkcd makes a great point through a comic with “Password Strength”.

Password Strength

Password Strength

I do not know if the point he is making is actually valid, some research will be required.

Update: Ben Rockwood comments on the webcomic with “Password Myths”.

I believe that Mr. Rockwood is correct in his appraisal that we should all start using the term pass phrase.

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/10/xkcd-password-strength/feed/ 0 NullPosts: suds and appengine http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/04/nullposts-suds-and-appengine/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/04/nullposts-suds-and-appengine/#comments Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:01:32 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=289 I ran into the issue described in NullPosts: suds and appengine today. This is caused by the great Python SOAP API, suds, and Google App Engine not playing together to do some of the restrictions in GAE. Thanks NullPosts!

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/04/nullposts-suds-and-appengine/feed/ 0 Google App Engine’s Python Exception Syntax http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/04/gae-python-exception-syntax/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/04/gae-python-exception-syntax/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:39:46 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=285 Remember, Python 2.5 has this exception syntax: 
try:
    raise FooException("Darn!")
except FooException, e
    print("Error: %s" % e)
The newer syntax is: 
try:
    raise FooException("Darn!")
except FooException as e
    print("Error: %s" % e)
I ran into this when uploading an application to Google App Engine, which then produced this cryptic error: 
<type 'exceptions.SyntaxError'>: invalid syntax (main.py, line 64)
Where line 64 is the line containing the not-yet-implemented as keyword.

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/04/gae-python-exception-syntax/feed/ 0 Get sources and Javadocs http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/01/get-sources-and-javadocs/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/01/get-sources-and-javadocs/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:12:46 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=282 How to tell Maven to download all Javadoc for your project’s dependencies:

mvn dependency:resolve -Dclassifier=javadoc

via Maven Micro-Tip: Get sources and Javadocs | Ted Wise.

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/08/01/get-sources-and-javadocs/feed/ 0 Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” Seems to Have a Broken Python easy_install http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/07/25/lion-broken-python-easy_install/ http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/07/25/lion-broken-python-easy_install/#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:11:36 +0000 adam http://www.sherman.ca/?p=276 One of the first things I needed after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) was to make some Python scripts work. However easy_install seemed to be broken: 
$ easy_install psycopg2
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/easy_install", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 2607, in <module>
    parse_requirements(requires), Environment()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 565, in resolve
    raise DistributionNotFound(req)  # XXX put more info here
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: setuptools==0.6c12dev-r88795
I fixed this by installing Distribute and then the new Mac OS X Developer Tools.

 

]]> http://www.sherman.ca/archives/2011/07/25/lion-broken-python-easy_install/feed/ 8